onboard

A repository setup assistant that identifies the programming languages and tools in a codebase, installs dependencies, runs the build and tests, and writes a grounded CLAUDE.md guide. A repository is the project's files and version history.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when joining an unfamiliar repository to detect Go, Node, Rust, Python, Elixir, or Ruby projects, install their dependencies, verify the build and tests, and document the findings.
Why use it?
It replaces the usual first-day work of discovering the stack, finding the right install and test commands, and learning the codebase layout. It leaves a map of the project for later work.

Command

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/dshakes/compass/onboard
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dshakes/compass
Per session 33 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 891 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00033 $0.00891
Opus 5 $0.00016 $0.00445
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00178
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00089

Measured 2d ago against content hash dd529a9919e4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

onboard scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

claude/commands/onboard.md · 84 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 84 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Onboard me into this repo${ARGUMENTS:+ at $ARGUMENTS}.

Work through these steps in order. Use cheap subagents aggressively — Haiku for any mechanical run (installs, test execution, grepping), Sonnet for reasoning and writing. Ask before anything destructive; never push, merge, or deploy.

1 · Detect the stack

Scan the repo root for indicator files and print a one-line summary:

  • go.mod → Go (note Go version)
  • package.json → Node; check pnpm-lock.yaml / yarn.lock / package-lock.json for the package manager
  • Cargo.toml → Rust (note edition / MSRV from the manifest)
  • pyproject.toml or requirements.txt → Python; prefer uv if available
  • mix.exs → Elixir; Gemfile → Ruby
  • Multiple files → polyglot; list all

2 · Install dependencies

Run the appropriate install command for each detected stack. Delegate this to a Haiku subagent — it's pure mechanics. Skip gracefully if deps are already present (cache hit / lockfile unchanged).

Stack Command
Go go mod download
Node/npm npm install
Node/pnpm pnpm install
Node/yarn yarn install
Rust cargo fetch
Python (uv) uv sync
Python (pip) pip install -r requirements.txt or pip install -e .
Elixir mix deps.get
Ruby bundle install

3 · Build + test

Find the correct commands — check Makefile targets, README, package.json scripts, go.mod, Cargo.toml, pyproject.toml. Run them via a Haiku subagent. Report PASS or FAIL with the last ~10 lines of output. Do NOT fix failing tests now — just surface them.

Typical probes (in order):

  1. make build && make test (if a Makefile with those targets exists)
  2. Stack-native: go build ./... && go test ./... / cargo test / npm test / pytest -q
  3. Any scripts.test entry in package.json

4 · Write or refresh CLAUDE.md

Invoke the bootstrap-agent-config skill — it inspects the repo and produces a grounded CLAUDE.md (build command, test command, run command, key directories, conventions). If the skill isn't available, do it yourself:

  • Read existing CLAUDE.md (if any); update only stale sections.
  • Ground every claim in code you actually read — no hallucinated commands.
  • Keep it short: a dense page beats five vague ones.

Read the full file on GitHub · 84 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 84 lines · 33 tokens per session scan A dd529a9919e4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

onboard is a command published in the GitHub repository dshakes/compass (19 stars, last pushed 8d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 33 tokens to every session and 891 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.